Starring Zooey Deschanel, Neal McDonough, Alan Cumming, Raoul Trujillo, Kathleen Robertson, and Richard Dreyfuss, the miniseries is a reimagining of the classic 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, with science fiction and additional fantasy elements added.

It focuses on the adventures of a small-town waitress named DG who is pulled into a magical realm called the O.Z., ruled by the tyrannical sorceress Azkadellia.

Together with her companions Glitch, Raw, and Cain, DG journeys to uncover her memories, find lost connections, and foil Azkadellia's plot to trap the O.Z.

Critics gave it mixed reviews, with some praising the acting, soundtrack, and visual effects, while others found it overly grim and bleak.

DG is a small-town waitress who feels that she does not fit into her Kansas farm life and has visions of a lavender-eyed woman warning her that a storm is coming.

DG receives a magical symbol on her palm and learns that her Kansan parents are androids and that her real mother is the lavender-eyed woman of her visions.

Visiting the Mystic Man in Central City and continuing on to the Northern Island, the group learns that Glitch was once the advisor to the Queen of the O.Z.

DG is freed by a small dog who is revealed to be a shapeshifter named Tutor (Blu Mankuma), her childhood teacher who is also nicknamed Toto.

DG, Glitch, Raw, and Cain head south with Tutor, not knowing that he is marking their path for Azkadellia's mobats to follow.

Along the way, DG rediscovers some of her magical abilities—restoring a withered fruit tree in the fields of the Papay — and Cain discovers his wife's grave.

Zero reveals the scope of Azkadellia's plan, which is to use the Emerald of the Eclipse in combination with a machine called the Sun Seeder to lock the O.Z.

RHI Entertainment and the Sci Fi Channel spent $20 million in the creation of the Tin Man mini-series, with Robert Halmi, Sr. acting as the lead producer.

[6] Sci Fi executive Dave Howe said that the companies felt such classic stories as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz "deserve[d] to be re-imagined for a new generation.

"[6] The script used for the creation of Tin Man reimagined The Wizard of Oz by creating new characters and adding elements of science fiction, fantasy, and steampunk to the narrative while making many allusions to the original story.

"[7] According to The Washington Post, when "McDonough read the script, though, he immediately saw the opportunity to play Wyatt Cain as 'that iconic Western Gary Cooper, High Noon-ish character.

'"[8] According to the International Herald Tribune, "Wide-eyed or no, Deschanel didn't want to reprise Garland's pigtailed Dorothy in Tin Man.

[20] Variety called it a "semi-surreal adaptation of The Wizard of Oz stitched together from bits of The Matrix, Blade Runner, and Snow White to create a brooding fantasy that—understandably given the variety of influences—proves a bit of a mess" and whose "look and action sequences don't fully deliver the goods" to the "target audience of fanboys and their imaginary girlfriends.

"[21] Tom Shales of The Washington Post called Tin Man a "hopeless opus" whose "pacing is largely funereal"; he said Deschanel's portrayal of DG was "saucy and captivating", complimented the "superb, rousing and romantic musical score by Simon Boswell" and characterized the "junky, clunky look" of the special effects as "fitfully spectacular".

[22] USA Today gave the film 2½ stars out of 4, comparing its "bleak, violent, unyieldingly unpleasant revisionist outlook" to the network's reimagined Battlestar Galactica; the review concluded: "Ambitious and intriguing though it may be, Tin Man is simply too long, too grim and too determined to impose a Lord of the Rings universe-saving quest on top of a simpler, gentler story.